I am in a state of some anguish, having lost the version of my latest story that I saved this morning, as well as, it appears all previous versions for the last six days. All I consciously did was clear the list of recent files in my word processor (i.e. the open recent files menu). The version that now appears in my documents file is the version saved on 20 October and that is 5 of 22 pages. Does anyone know how to reverse this disaster?

I am in a state of some anguish, having lost the version of my latest story that I saved this morning, as well as, it appears all previous versions for the last six days. All I consciously did was clear the list of recent files in my word processor (i.e. the open recent files menu). The version that now appears in my documents file is the version saved on 20 October and that is 5 of 22 pages. Does anyone know how to reverse this disaster?

I don't know how, but it appears I accidentally restored the version of the file that was first saved after the last recovery point which was a week ago. The entire history of the file has disappeared after that point. Everything that I've found so far tells me how to do this, not how to reverse it. Sadly Windows help itself tells me the process is irreversible since the new / old file is written over the old / new file .

A certain person who knows me better than I know myself said that whilst the story was fresh in my mind I should just write it down again. Turns out she was quite right and though it took hours I've 'recovered' the story one quarter from the surviving opening scene and a 450 exchange and three quarters from my memory. Huge relief. I actually think it's better than it was before.

Now if anyone would care to exchange before I lose it again, I have a space opera on offer!

I'd be willing to exchange, but my story needs some serious revisions plotwise before it's ready to be submit. I usually wait a week after finishing a story to revise, that way I have more of an objective lens to judge my story with, since right now I'm way too absorbed in it to be able to tell if it's good or pure crap.

Ishmael wrote:That's OK. PM me when you're ready. I've saved the story in five places and printed it!

Good good! And I'm so glad you were able to recreate it!

Thank you. I feel good about it too, now. It's not the first time of course that I've lost a chunk of work but it was the biggest ever.

It turned out to be such a good thing that I'd done a couple of WIP exchanges since the start of the story was still available there. Then the fact that I'm obsessive about reading and re-reading to look for mistakes and possible tweaks meant a lot of it was still word for word in my head.

Strangely it has sometimes happened before when I've been forced to re-write a piece that I've lost that it turns out better than it was. Being a seat-of-the-pants type of writer I'm not always sure exactly where I'm going and I have to edit quite vigorously when I've finished a draft. This time I knew exactly and in detail what I wanted to say and was not distracted by anything, so at least the structure of the story should be clear. We'll see what readers and in due course the judge make of it.

Ishmael wrote:Strangely it has sometimes happened before when I've been forced to re-write a piece that I've lost that it turns out better than it was. Being a seat-of-the-pants type of writer I'm not always sure exactly where I'm going and I have to edit quite vigorously when I've finished a draft. This time I knew exactly and in detail what I wanted to say and was not distracted by anything, so at least the structure of the story should be clear. We'll see what readers and in due course the judge make of it.

I know I'm kind of derailing the topic here, but I find that very intriguing. I don't consider myself a panster, and yet lately I've been finding it so difficult not to get bogged down in details, infodumps, and other such pace-killing muck. (It's like when you're talking to someone, and you see your foot headed toward your mouth, and yet you somehow just can't shut up!) I also edit rigorously afterwards, but I've been wondering if I should experiment for a few stories with always rewriting from scratch after I finish the first draft. Reading here about your experience makes me think I should definitely give it a try.

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." - Ray Bradbury"Write until it becomes as natural as breathing. Write until not writing makes you anxious." - Christina Katz